


Things You Were Afraid to Say

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: ?? - Freeform, AU where none of the things Evan said were lies, Angst, Closeted Character, Crying, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, ZOE IS SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER, aka he was actually bffls with connor, and this was the fic response so there, for fuck's sake guys WRITE ABOUT THE WOMEN, graveyards, i dont know what that means but someone sent me an ask, i dont usually write Straight fics but jesus, it's so easy, okay ANYHOW, potentially bad characterization, seriously?? there are only four zoe/evan fics on here??, that's it it's just sad, what is this misogyny???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 16:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10312697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: The fifth time Zoe offers to take Evan with her to see Connor at his grave, Evan finally surrenders, because he figures she’s getting tired of asking and getting no for an answer.(An AU where Evan was actually best friends with Connor. Time-wise, takes place around the beginning of Act Two. Not plot-wise, obviously.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> i got sent an ask with "things you were afraid to say" as a writing prompt and no pairing and i was like "wtf why not"  
> sidenote, i typed in "zoe murphy/evan hansen" in the relationship tags and IT DIDN'T COME UP. like why does NO ONE write about Zoe??? i know gay representation is important but if it's shoving women out of their rightful stories then it's harmful so just.......please write about zoe (AND ALANA) PLEASE  
> also enjoy this

The fifth time Zoe offers to take Evan with her to see Connor at his grave, Evan finally surrenders, because he figures she’s getting tired of asking and getting no for an answer.

The graveyard is small, gray, and sad, just like Evan, sometimes. All of these dead people. Are they all peaceful? Did they all accidentally-on-purpose fall out of trees? Or are they the best friends that killed themselves? How can so many people die in so many ways? How many of them were hit by cars, or accidentally overdosed on drugs, or got beat up so badly they couldn’t keep breathing? How many ways can you die?

Evan thinks that sitting in the darkness, and asphyxiating in a tomb, is the worst thing ever. Every so often he’s glad all he got was a broken arm when his fingers loosened on that branch and he landed all wrong on the ground thirty feet below him. Every so often, like when he and his mom have Taco Tuesdays (they don’t do them a lot anymore but every time they do she smiles at him and he gets warm in his fingertips) and when Zoe kisses him (she does that a lot and he gets warm all over).

“This way,” Zoe murmurs over the thick silence. Evan doesn’t say anything. He follows behind her, their fingers loosely interlocked.

She slows to a stop in front of a plain, grey headstone. The words  _ Connor Murphy: a great son and brother _ are carved into it, too fresh, too new.

Evan stares at it and suddenly he wants to turn back. “You know what, this was a mistake,” he says to Zoe, forgetting that in a graveyard you don’t raise your voice or you’ll scare the dead or something stupid. “I — we should just go. This is a very nice gravestone. I think —”

“Evan,” Zoe says softly, tightening her grip on his hand. He casts his eyes downward. “Evan,” she repeats, and with two fingers lifts his chin up to meet her eyes. He doesn’t resist.

“Do this for Connor,” Zoe says. She’s using her quiet voice, the one she uses whenever Evan feels like he’s about to freak out and break down or something. “Please. This would mean so much to him. I know he loved you.”

Evan’s breath catches in his throat like he swallowed a brick and his windpipe is closing in on itself. He manages, “Okay.” And then, “Can I just — have a minute or — or two? Alone?”

Zoe smiles uncertainly. “Of course. I’ll be by the tree, okay?”

Evan nods. She kisses his cheek (it’s warm where her lips touch) and then walks away. Every couple of seconds she glances back like she’s worried he’ll do something stupid. In the back of his mind, Evan’s worried he’ll do something stupid too. She’s right to be concerned. 

When she’s just out of sight, he turns back toward the headstone and the urge to run wells up in him again like poison. He stomachs it and sits, cross-legged, across from the headstone.

“Hey, Connor,” he tries. It feels weird. He reaches out and reluctantly touches the rock. It’s rough and uneven, like Connor. Suddenly there are tears in Evan’s eyes and they sting like he’s being pricked with a needle, like he’s being pricked with a thousand needles at once. He shakes his head and sniffles, wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his hoodie.

“I still — I hate you,” Evan whispers, choking on the words. “I hate you for leaving me, Connor. Did you hate me that much? You couldn’t find one reason — just one reason to stay, I don’t — I just — why didn’t you — say goodbye, or...or anything?” He swallows thickly. “Why didn’t you just…” And then he exhales loudly, and the words that have been piling up behind his ribcage spill out, overflow through his mouth and fill the graveyard. “Was it that bad, being gay? Was it so hard that you had to die?”

And then the tears spill over his cheeks, because god had it felt good to have a friend, and to be the only person in on a secret —

* * *

_ “Are you sure you're okay?” Evan asked for maybe the fifth time that night and the twentieth time that week. _

_ Connor huffed. “For fuck’s sake, why do you keep asking me that? I'm  _ fine _.” _

_ “Yeah, no, I get it,” Evan said quickly. He paused as Connor sketched another couple of lines on his drawing, which was shaping up to be a transformer or something. “It's just, you're being quieter and angrier than usual.” _

_ Connor whipped his head around and glared at Evan. “I'm always quiet and angry. Okay? That's what happens when you ask someone the same fucking question a million times.” _

_ “Okay, okay,” Evan surrendered. Connor snapping at him no longer made him flinch. _

_ It was really quiet for a couple of minutes, except for Connor’s pencil scratching marks and details onto his drawing. It was the kind of quiet that’s filled with secrets at bay. Evan didn't want to break it with any of his own secrets. _

_ He didn't have to. _

_ “Fine,” Connor finally said, and dropped his pencil. He didn't meet Evan’s eyes, though, and his fingers drummed on the paper. “You got me. Something’s bugging me. Happy?” _

_ “What - what is it?” Evan asked, uncertain if Connor wanted to tell him.  _

_ Connor shook his head and his hair flew around his face. “I'm just — I'm having a hard time, dude. Life fucking sucks, you know? And — I think…” _

_ He trailed off and Evan wanted to shake him until he said just what it was he thought, but he kept his hands as still as they would get and pressed his palms together between his thighs so he wouldn't fidget. _

_ Connor’s words were less than a whisper. “I think I'm — I think I'm gay, Evan.” _

_ Evan flinched only out of instinct and he was grateful for Connor facing away from him because he knew Connor would read this wrong and that would become a huge disaster. “Okay,” he said, as if nothing had just shifted fractionally and made his view of Connor infinitesimally different. “That's, um...that's cool. I mean, not cool. I mean it is cool, but — I mean that's, I don't care, it doesn't affect the fact that we’re friends.” _

_ Connor snorted. “Yeah, right. I know the bullshit. You're worried I'm gonna hit on you.” His tone was hard. “Well I'm not. So get over it.” _

_ “I wasn't thinking —” _

_ “I don't even know if I'm gay anyway, okay? God. I just — I think I am.” _

_ “How do you know?” Evan asked. “If you’re gay, I mean.” _

_ Connor shrugged helplessly, and finally turned around and looked Evan straight in the eyes, like laser vision, searing through his whole head. _

_ “You just do,” he muttered. “Don’t be weird about it.” _

* * *

“I wasn’t ever going to tell anyone,” he whispers now, and lets the wind carry his words away. “I wasn’t going to. Even if you hadn’t made me promise a thousand times I still wouldn’t have told. But why didn’t you just let yourself  _ be _ ?” Evan sniffles again and rubs at his eyes uselessly. The wrists of his sweatshirt are damp with tears. His fingers tighten around the sleeve.

There’s no answer except for a breeze that brushes across Evan’s cheeks and makes them cold. He remembers every moment he ever watched Connor doing the smallest things, sketching, smiling on rare occasions and always because of Evan, rolling his eyes, tying his shoes. Mundane things that seemed extraordinary.

“Connor,” Evan murmurs in a cracked voice. “You weren’t the only one that was too afraid to say —” 

“Hey.” Zoe’s voice is so soft, but so are her footsteps, and Evan jumps a mile to his feet when she’s standing _ right there _ behind him. “Everything okay?”

Evan sniffles. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he mutters. “It’s — I’m okay.” He glances at the tombstone and then at Zoe’s face, drawn with worry. “I think…” He shakes his head. “We should go.”

Zoe’s eyes flicker from the tombstone to Evan’s tearstained face and sighs. “Oh, Evan,” she says, and laces her fingers with his. He lets her. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Evan says. “It’s not your fault he killed himself.”

Zoe lifts her shoulder halfway, and lets it drop. “I’m still sorry.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” Evan says firmly. “It’s his fault he killed himself. He was scared.”

Zoe tilts her head; her grip on his hand tightens subtly. “Scared of what? Life?” And she breathes a humorless laugh. “We all are.”

Evan shakes his head and looks at the stone engraved with Connor’s name,  _ a great son and brother, _ but not friend. He swallows.

“Scared people would find out he’s — he was gay,” he says.

Zoe’s grip tightens a lot more. There’s a tense kind of frozen silence. “Gay?”

Evan worries his lower lip between his teeth. “He told me — two weeks before he killed himself, and I wish — I should have — talked to him, or...he didn’t — he really hated it, but I didn’t think. I didn’t think he’d.” He gestures helplessly to the grave. “I wish I’d done something.”

Zoe inhales and then exhales a long time. “God,” she finally says, disbelieving. “I should have known.” She squeezes his hand. “Evan, don’t blame yourself for —”

“I don’t,” he interrupts, more uncharacteristically certain than he’s been in awhile. “I blame him. He should’ve — not cared so much.” What a hypocritical sentence.

Zoe looks over at him, and Evan can’t quite read her face, which worries him a little. She rests her head on his shoulder.

“I think we should go home,” she finally breathes into the air.

Evan sighs. “Yeah.” 

**Author's Note:**

> will probably continue this or build on this AU but thank you for reading! i am on tumblr @vivilevone or @do-you-ever-really-crash (im too lazy to link them here) thank you !


End file.
